Cast Iron Chef Competition at An Tir's War College

The second annual Cast Iron Chef cooking competition will be held Saturday June
14, 2003 at the Three Mountains War College in Clackamas & Multnomah Counties,
OR.
Khalja khorkhoi writes:

Cooking Competition

Come one, come all for the second annual Cast Iron
Chef cooking competition, to be held again this year
at War College. The competition itself will be held on
Saturday, June 14th. Come find out if the reigning
champions, Ma Elring, will be able to defend their
hard won title. They really pulled out all the stops
last year, so the competition will be fierce.

In morning court I will reveal the "mystery"
ingredient (all that we have left in the besieged
castle's larder) which will be the featured
item in each of up to three dishes which your team
can create in 3 hours on site. The mystery ingredient
will be supplied by the competition host. All other
ingredients will be supplied by the entrants.

We are hoping for the competition to start following
morning court or no later than 11 AM so that we will
not conflict with evening court and the potluck.

Here are the rules:

* Teams may be composed of NO MORE THAN 5 people.
* Teams may present up to 3 dishes for judging (the
judges could barely walk after last years tasting)
* Entrants may borrow one and only one ingredient from
outside of their team, but must remain on site. (No
going to the store!)
* Entrants must present a list of all ingredients
used.
* All ingredients must be known in period. Any
questionable ingredient choices can be challenged and
must be defended with documentation.
* Difficult/impossible to find ingredients may be
substituted (judges discretion) for modernly available
items. (i.e. White carrots are no
longer easily available, so orange carrots are an
acceptable substitute. You may have forgotten to bring
turnips, but you cannot substitute potatoes for them
because the original ingredient is easily obtainable
in modern grocery stores).
* Any use of ingredients violating the competition
rules will result in disqualification of the dish.
* Bread and soup stock may be made ahead of time and
brought to the competition.

This year we are hoping to round up a panel of
celebrity judges (volunteers please contact Svava).

The criteria for judging are (in descending order):

* Documentation (extra points for period
recipes and use of ingredients in a period way. (ie
all of the ingredients in a Rheuben sandwich date to
period, but they were probably never served in that
way, so the sandwich would not score as highly as
corned beef sliced and laid on a trencher with onions,
cabbage and slices of cheese). Bonus
points for period cooking methods (cooking over the
fire, making your own bread, etc)
* Complexity/Cooking Skill/Taste - How
difficult was it to prepare, is it warm/burnt? If it
was bland in period, we will not count that against
you (ie flat beer is period but does not appeal to
modern palates, this would not count against you).
* Use of featured ingredient (each dish gets
one point and extra points for exceptional use of
featured item).
* Presentation (is it attractively
displayed, and is it presented in a period manner /
setting (i.e. paper plates would not score as highly
as trenchers. Subtleties earn extra points).